Franco Bonisolli is in great voice here and sings with finesse and musicality, the high notes confidently taken, but not held out self-indulgently as sometimes happened later on in his career. His French is very good. Bonaldo Giaiotti is a strong Mephistopheles who never overplays his role, yet can seem a little anonymous. Jeanette Pilou is a satisfying Marguerite, sounding the naive, lonely village maiden to the life. Her trill in the Jewel Song is minimal and some of her high notes pushed, but she is most sympathetic. Paskalis makes Valentin into a real person and sings his big aria very well indeed. Hilde De Groote is a lovely Siebel and Hilde Rossl-Majdan a first-rate Marthe. Marzendorfer plays more of the score than we usually hear, including most of the ballet in the Fifth Act. I wish Pilou had sung "Il ne revient pas "; on the other hand, it's a long opera.The in-house sound is a little muffled, but very listenable, the voices quite audible. If this isn't a Faust for the record books, it's an honest, well-sung account that Faust lovers will enjoy.

Although I have long maintained that Faust pretty much plays itself, this performance tests that proposition to the breaking point. Ernst Maerzendorfer's dreary conducting is the primary culprit but a polyglot, mostly unidiomatic cast is no help. Kostas Paskalis declaims nobly as Valentin but otherwise Egyptian-born Jeannette Pilou is the closest thing to a French stylist and even she lacks the trills for the Jewel Song. A bonus track of the Madama Butterfly love duet shows her and Franco Bonisolli (a reliably loud Faust) on more congenial terrain. Get Opera Depot's Covent Garden performance with Kiri te Kanawa, Stuart Burrows, Thomas Allen and Norman Treigle, majestically led by Charles Mackerras, instead.

A very good house-cast of Vienna Opera